The second in the GrowthBusters webinar series, Solving Overshoot: End Overpopulation or Stop Overconsumption, went by too quickly. At the end of the hour there were 26 questions we hadn’t had a chance to address. Our panelists, Paul Ehrlich and Madeleine Somerville, were kind enough to provide written responses to these. I will share these here on the GrowthBusters blog over the next several days.

I recommend you subscribe to the blog now to make sure you don’t miss any of these. See the subscription box to the right. Subscribing will also ensure you get notice of the next webinar in the series. While I’ll post nearly every day to get through these questions, normally the blog posts are pretty sparse (subscribing won’t clutter your inbox in 2017). If you’re a GrowthBusters member, you will get webinar invitations regardless. . . .

One of the three podcasts I host is called The Overpopulation Podcast, a project of World Population Balance. One episode this year featured a conversation with author Laura Carroll about making the choice to be childfree. One listener emailed this comment:

“Dear Dave, It’s not population as population is leveling off. It’s consumption, consumption, consumption.”

I’m writing about this today because this is a fairly common occurrence. That’s one of the reasons I’m hosting a free webinar this week:

Solving Overshoot: End Overpopulation or Stop Overconsumption?

I suspect most people think they know the answer to that question. I think I do. So I doubt many will attend hoping to actually find out the answer. I think most who attend will be there to make sure someone doesn’t offer the WRONG answer. Interestingly, there are differing opinions on what the correct answer is. . . .

Webinar: Joy of a Steady State Economy

Register here for this webinar

Did you know current economic objectives are “pulling the rug” out from under our children’s future? What kind of economy will be sustainable in the 21st century? Join Brian Czech, author of Supply Shock and founder of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy, for a conversation about the need for a steady state economy, what a steady state economy is, the benefits, and how we get there. Each webinar is one hour and 15 minutes. Registrants receive a link to view a replay in case they miss the webinar. This is a two-part series. Registration gets you into both webinars:

• Basic Webinar – February 15, 2017 at 9 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time
• Advanced, In-Depth, Followup Discussion – February 22, 2017 at 9 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time

REGISTRATION LINKS:

For a Limited Time, Non-Members Register Free . . .

I am not alone. That’s the message I got from the results of our recent Green Living Survey. I didn’t expect to have so much company on a number of fronts. Let’s go through the highlights:

1. How are we currently leaving the Earth each year?

A whopping 92% of respondents understand that we’re currently injuring Earth’s ecosystems, each year leaving the planet a little less capable of supporting our massive global population and economy.

3% feel we leave the planet in better shape each year. I imagine they are CEOs of asphalt or concrete companies.

2. Which is causing the most injury to ecosystems?

There was no right or wrong answer to this question. It will be debated till we’ve run human civilization off a cliff. An impressive 72% chose BOTH overpopulation and over-consumption, avoiding the debate. . . .

Over 7 billion of us are alive on this planet today.

Twice as many as in 1969.

Our $80 trillion global economy has doubled since 2003.

Are we doing what it takes so our children can live good lives?

Take this quiz and let’s see how we’re doing!

(Survey ends midnight 5 October 2016)